


roses are red, violets are too

by PuriPuki



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Description of, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Not Actually Unrequited Love, blood (not graphic), surgical procedures (not graphic), vomiting (not graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 06:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13382574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuriPuki/pseuds/PuriPuki
Summary: There are bloody flower petals in the toilet, an iron aftertaste stinging her mouth. It burns. The petals are small and soft, a vibrant purple, curling in on themselves.A quiet exhale escapes her.The rattling in her chest makes more sense now.





	roses are red, violets are too

The first time is in the middle of the night.

 

Earlier that evening, she’d sat calmly, eating dinner with her parents and making disgusted little faces when her father tells awful jokes even though she loves them. She goes on and on about her day, how awful calculus is and how she just wants to skip the math prerequisites and just get to the fun part of science. Her mother tells a romanticized story about how she met Severa’s father in one of her college courses, and she says it was a science course, but her father disagrees - it was most certainly an english course where they met, because her father remembers having to read Shakespeare and only ever thinking of her mother.

 

“Gross,” Severa says, but these stories are ones she’s heard before. Stahl was never the best storyteller but could get by with Cordelia’s help.

 

The rest of the evening is spent in her room, mulling over calculus homework and planning her route for tomorrow, whether or not to stop at a coffee place, and whether or not to get Owain a cup if she does. She coughs once or twice, something rattling her chest. When it doesn’t happen again, she thinks nothing of it. When she lays in bed, her thoughts drift to old friends she hasn’t seen in a while - Lucina is in the forefront of these thoughts, almost all of them revolving around her. She doubts Lucina would recognize her now - hair cut short since high school, close cut and curling around her ears, bathtub dyed to give hers the same viridian highlights her father dyes his hair with, to hide the graying roots.

 

Lucina is far off now, though, almost done with college, almost ready to jump head first into a messy world of law and justice. They haven’t spoken in months now, not since Lucina briefly returned home before an overseas venture.

 

If anyone asked, she would say it was only a coincidence that her last waking thoughts were of a childhood friend.

 

And when she wakes at three am, rushing for the bathroom, it stops being a coincidence. There are bloody flower petals in the toilet, an iron aftertaste stinging her mouth. It burns. The petals are small and soft, a vibrant purple, curling in on themselves.

 

A quiet exhale escapes her.

 

The rattling in her chest makes more sense now.

 

If Owain remarks about the dark bags under her eyes the next morning in Chemistry, she decides she’ll kill him. But not before she makes him recount his own morbid experience with Hanahaki.

 

Hanahaki. What a lovely name for something so deadly.

 

✧✧✧

 

_“It was middle school, remember, like seventh grade. I was out sick with the flu, or so I said, for a week before I told my mom about the petals. Sunflowers.” Owain says, making a fist, “The whole flowers were the worst, they were always so big - like this” He holds up the fist. “Dad was so scared, they thought they were going to lose me. Mom forced me to tell her who I was in love with.”_

 

_“Did you tell her the truth?” She asks, curious. She knows he’s with Brady now, but back then… who knows?_

 

_“Of course. She’s mom. She would’ve known if I lied.”_   


 

_“Who was it?”_

 

_“Brady, of course. I cried when I told her. And she cried too, and she called Maribelle. And then Maribelle was crying, and it was a whole mess. But Maribelle didn’t tell Brady. That was my responsibility.” Owain pauses, taking a swig of his coffee. “But mom gave me an ultimatum. Tell him, or get the surgery.”_

 

_“What did you do?”_

 

_“I told him, of course. He cried and I thought he hated me for a minute. But he told me he felt the same. He didn’t have the flowers, and he cried even harder when I showed him all the petals.”_ _  
_

_  
_ _“You kept them?!”_

 

_“Yeah. I don’t know why. Or maybe I did and just don’t remember. I threw them all out after that.”_

 

_“How did you know he would feel the same?”_

 

_“I didn’t. But I didn’t want to stop feeling in love with him yet, so I told him. If he didn’t love me, I would get the surgery. But he loves me, so we’re chilling. Why are you asking me about this, anyway?”_

 

_“No reason. Just curious.”_

 

_“Hmm that sounds fake, but okay. Wanna get some Arby’s after this?”_

 

_“What? Ew, no, I don’t know how you eat that stuff. Let’s get Thai instead.”_

 

✧✧✧

 

She does her research.

 

Hanahaki disease is relatively uncommon. It happens, but not everyone who falls in love contracts it. If they did, the world would have bigger problems. There have been many types of flowers recorded. Apple blossoms, chrysanthemums, lilies, roses, tulips, jasmine, plumeria, almost every flowering plant that exists. She reads the story of a man who had a massive corpse flower puncture a lung. Violets are fairly common, the website notes, especially among women.

 

The surgery is described in functional words. The roots are extracted, before the vines and their thorns are pulled apart from the tissue. Any blossoms or petals are carefully removed, taking with them all romantic feelings for the patient’s beloved.

 

There are three stages, she finds. The first is when the flowers take root. The petals in this stage are small, and often covered in blood. The tissue of the lung is too delicate to withstand the rooting process, so it bleeds. The second is when full flowers bloom, often very painful and very hard to deal with. Many people are found out to have Hanahaki at this stage, as the expelling of flowers becomes more frequent. The third is when the roots break through the lungs and penetrate the heart. Vines climb up the esophagus and the ill chokes on their own blood.

 

The website she finds provides the happy statistic that 90% of all those who reach the third stage of Hanahaki disease refuse to get the surgery that would save their life.

 

Severa has a sinking feeling that she’ll be among that 90%.

 

Telling Lucina doesn’t even cross her mind, not even as the purple petals slowly turn to a dark blue, almost matching the shade of Lucina’s hair. Telling her parents does cross her mind - she can’t imagine what they’ll say, what they’ll feel. Severa doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to stop loving Lucina either.

 

The flowers start bubbling up her throat during class, and she finds herself hiding behind dollar store surgical masks more and more. People don’t say anything to her. They do look at the blood on the edge of the mask, and they note the petals peeking over the side. Even then, their judgment is silent.

 

If Owain gives her a sad look, like he’s just finally realized why she ever asked, she doesn’t tell him to fix his face. For once, she’ll leave him be.

 

If Brady tells her that she’s worth more than whatever the violets are doing to her, she’ll ignore him. He may know better, but doctor or not, the violets will stay. If he urges her to tell someone, parents or medical professional or even a therapist, his pleads will go unheard.

 

The flowers will stay. The soil they’ve taken to is too close to her heart for her to uproot them.

 

But of course, keeping this a secret from her parents is a pipe dream. She knows her mother was once in love with someone besides her father, but their love is secure - the wedding photo sits proudly on the mantle of the fireplace, alongside her graduation photos from high school. But that doesn’t mean she’ll understand.

 

It happens at dinner, like one that happened before the first time petals came tumbling off her lips. Her father is telling some god awful joke, something someone said at work or something like that, and she’s laughing so hard that it hurts. Her laughter turns into a coughing fit, and at first, nothing is wrong. Cordelia and Stahl know their daughter is ill, still trying to shake a cough from a week-long flu.

 

A blossom comes falling out, an inky blue singed with blood. It lands, delicately, on the plate in front of her, before sixteen more blossoms follow it. There are tears in her eyes, because this is not how this was supposed to happen - she thought of telling them, from time to time. Breaking the news gently, presenting them with a doctor’s diagnosis and a blunt “I’m not getting it removed.”. Not like this, never like this, never brutal and unkind and secretive. One of them is saying someone, but her ears are ringing.

 

“Severa, please, how long?” Her mother asks, and oh, she’s crying, and hard. Severa has to stop herself from crying now, ever since the full blossoms started coming in. She would get too out of breath, sobbing over how her life would end soon, and the vines would constrict. She was out of breath too often, now. “How long have you been hiding this?”

 

“Four months,” She says, voice raspy. She wipes her mouth, smearing blood across her cheek. All three of them are crying now, Cordelia and Stahl tightly grasping hands from across their tiny table. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Mommy, I really w-wanted to tell you, but I-” Another cough wracks her, sending another wave of petals spilling over her lips.

 

“Who is it?” Her father asks, and Severa thinks, _is this the first time I’ve ever seen Dad cry?_ “Vee, baby, you have to tell us, please.”

 

“I can’t,” She whispers, “You’ll make me tell and she doesn’t love me, I know she doesn’t.” Stahl gives his wife a look, and there’s silence for a moment. “Please don’t make me, please.”

 

Silence falls over the table, and it’s quiet when Cordelia stands. She takes her daughter by the hand, and motions for her husband to follow before dragging Severa to her own bedroom. Severa sits on the floor by the trash bin, wary of staining the floor. Stahl sits beside her, rubbing her back when the coughs wrack her. Cordelia is digging through a keepsake box from under the bed, and starts talking as she searches through photos.

 

“When I was 17, your father and I were in the same year of high school. We went to the same school, but we never spoke before. I was head over heels in love with another boy, in my social circle. You know I was a cheerleader, a popular kid. It was Chrom, Lucina’s father. I was so, overwhelmingly in love with him that I didn’t even care when I got Hanahaki.”

 

“You had it?” Severa asks, voice low.

 

“They were anemones,” Stahl comments, “I remember them. There was a big fuss when you coughed some up at prom.”

 

“Like I said, I had it bad. I hid the flowers for months, even from my parents. They were so upset when they found out, demanded that I either told him or got the flowers removed. I was so angry at them, but I knew they just wanted me alive.”

 

“What did you do?” Severa asks, not unlike when she questioned Owain about his flowers.

 

“I told him. He didn’t feel the same.”

 

“So you got the surgery.”

 

“I did,” Cordelia says, pulling out a thin frame from the box. It holds a small, pressed flower, light purple with a darker center. “But I made sure to keep the last flower. So I would always remember how I felt, even if I didn't feel like that anymore.”

 

“Why are you telling me this?”

 

“Because if you think we didn’t know you were gone on Lucina, you were wrong.” Severa isn’t surprised. She’s always tried to hide her feelings, but she’s never really been that good at it. “We knew years ago, even if you didn’t.”

 

“You have to tell her, Vee,” Stahl says, holding some of the bloody blossoms in his hands. “Before it’s too late. I know you probably don’t want to,”

 

“You’re right about that,” She says, the usual bite gone from her voice.

 

“But you really should. We don’t want to see you suffer like this, sweetpea.”

 

“I don’t want you to be like I was,” Cordelia says. Her eyes are red around the edges and it’ll be clear in the morning that she’s been crying. “Please at least think of telling her.”

 

“She won’t feel the same.”

 

“Even if she doesn’t, confessing will help. It makes it… easier, I suppose, to get the surgery if they don’t feel the same.” Cordelia says, before settling beside Severa on the floor. They stay there for hours, just murmuring soft stories and quiet ‘love you’s.

 

✧✧✧

 

The disease progresses onwards. Blossoms bubble out of her more and more often, constricting her throat. Her voice is always coarse now, vocal chords hushed by growing vines. She takes an extended medically-based leave from school, because it’s too hard to breathe and concentrating is getting harder and harder, and not to mention her memory is going down the drain, though Owain sends her notes from chemistry and calculus nonetheless.

 

Against her will, her mother calls Chrom for her, asking for Lucina. “She’s dying,” Cordelia tells him, “and she should have her friends at her side.”

 

Lucina is home now, back from London for spring break.

 

“You should’ve called me,” Lucina chides her, leaning back in Severa’s desk chair. “I could’ve been here the whole time.”

 

“Bullshit,” Severa tells her, though it comes out more like a desperate cough than actual words. “You were in fucking England, Luce, no way I’m gonna call you up, _hey how’s London, yeah I’m dying, be here for the funeral_ ”

 

“You should’ve called,” Lucina says again, reaching over to hold Severa’s hand. “I would’ve been here for you, Atlantic ocean be damned.”

 

It’s bittersweet. Noire drops by every Friday, bringing honeyed cakes and candies. She tells Severa that honey will soothe her throat, but they both know that’s a lie - the honey will only make the vines sticky and the flowers will be harder to remove from the back of her throat. Noire combats this by bringing a thermos of hot chocolate with her too, but it still hurts after Noire comes by.

 

It’s bright when both Owain and Lucina are there. They share more inside jokes than Lucina’s younger brother and sister, and it’s amusing to hear them bicker. It’s hard for her to laugh, though, so they stop expecting her to. She still tries, but Lucina shushes her when she does, wiping the blossoms off of the bed’s quilt and into the garbage bin that’s taken up permanent residence in Severa’s room.

 

Things come to a head when Lucina finally, after weeks of dodging the question, asks who Severa is in love with.

 

“I think that if you’re so willing to die at the hands of these flowers, I should at least know who’s worth dying for.” Lucina says, sitting in bed beside her. It’s been a good day, which are rare now - the blossoms are slower, the vines are still creeping up her throat but it’s less harsh today. “We used to tell each other everything, you know. I don’t know if you remember.”

 

“I do,” Severa whispers back, still unable to get her voice above a rasp. “But that was high school. You left.”

 

“That doesn’t mean I stopped caring about you,” Lucina says, bumping Severa as she turns the page to her book. It’s something about famous court cases, which Severa would find absolutely dry if it wasn’t Lucina reading it out loud. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have come back.”

 

“Doesn’t matter now,” Severa chokes out, a few petals coming with it. “I’m stage 3, you know.”

 

“Yeah, I know. I still want to know who it is.”

 

“Promise you won’t hate me?” She asks, wiping at the trail of blood on her chin. It’s annoying now, wiping it away. She’s ruined so many shirts and nightgowns that way, stained them red at the edges. She holds out her pinky finger, “Pinky promise?”

 

“I promise,” Lucina says, linking their fingers together. Severa sighs, her chest rattling - for plants, they sure make a lot of noise. “I could never hate you.”

 

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Severa says. “Your family doesn’t have the best track record for this kind of thing.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“When our parents were in, fuck, high school? I think, I can’t really remember. Anyways, my mom was in love with your dad. Mom got hanahaki, anemone flowers. She showed me one, she kept one of the flowers for some reason. Don’t really know why. Your dad didn’t feel the same.” Severa explains, waving her hands around. “So, hence the family track record. If your pops didn’t feel the same about my mom, what’s to say you felt the same as me?”

 

Something twinges in her chest, low and deep. The website she first visited, some WebMD lookalike, said that this wasn’t uncommon in the later stages - it was a vine trying to break through the tissue of the lung. It doesn’t quite hurt like her throat, but it’s not something she wants to happen again. Severa focuses on the twinge, which seems to be lasting a lot longer than the websites suggested, instead of the way Lucina’s tensed up at her side.

 

“You’re… within an inch of death, literally on your deathbed, all because… you love me?”

 

“Hm. Sounds dumb when you say it like that.” Severa says, pulling a swath of petals from the back of her mouth. They seemed to collect there, like a chipmunk’s cheek. “Sounds about right, though.”

 

“I… can’t believe you?” Lucina says, like she’s actually shocked. Like Severa hasn’t been in love with her for years on end, only just now letting the truth spill, because the flowers wouldn’t stop spilling with it. Like it’s never been obvious. “You’re such a fool.”

 

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Severa remarks, leaning over to spit another blossom out. “Been gone on you for a while, though.”

 

“I can’t believe you,” Lucina says again, voice wobbly. “You should’ve said something, you’re so…”

 

“Lemme guess, dumb? Foolish? An absolute walnut?”

 

“You’re so loved.” Lucina settles on, turning to face Severa. “You’re _so_ loved.”

 

“What are you saying?” Severa asks, “I don’t get it.”

 

“I love you, so much, Severa. You’ve had my heart for years.”

 

“Oh. Good to know.” She says, leaning over to rest her head on Lucina’s shoulder. The twinge in her chest relaxes, the ache in her throat self soothing. “I think it’s gone now. I’m gonna take a nap.”

 

“Okay,” Lucina whispers, wrapping an arm around her. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

 

“You fuckin’ better be. Didn’t cough up six months worth of flowers jus’ for you to leave. Let mom know when she checks in on us.”

 

“As you wish.”

 

When Cordelia comes in later, at 3:15 like clockwork, honeyed tea in hand, she notices that Severa’s chest isn’t rattling when she breathes, and it’s strange. That sound, so close to a death rattle, finally gone from her child’s life. Lucina is smiling at her, Severa still asleep on her shoulder.

 

There’s a violet tucked behind Lucina’s ear. Severa is smiling in her sleep, peaceful. Cordelia smiles, putting the tea down on the nightstand. There are violets on the bed sheets, but the blood on them is dry and dark. A time will come for conversations and re-introductions as lovers later, but for now, all is well as they lay quietly in bed.

**Author's Note:**

> hh i hope u enjoy i wrote this at midnight on very little sleep bc i was craving some hanahaki angst. more to come soon maybe


End file.
